Jordan DeLorenzo was just 12 years old when a visit with a doctor at Golisano Children’s Hospital would change his life forever.
"I just kept getting fevers, and they wouldn't go away,” DeLorenzo, now 18, recalled. “(The doctor) told my mom that it could be leukemia. I didn't know what that was at first, and then she said, ‘cancer.’ That scared me.”
It eventually wasn’t a "could be." It was cancer.
“I wasn't sure what was going to happen to me. I was scared,” DeLorenzo said. “But I found that having family close to you helps.”
Someone else would help, too. After his diagnosis, DeLorenzo met another boy — Adyn Pickett — who’d already been battling cancer.
Despite a six-year age gap, the pair bonded over Pokémon, Legos and their shared reality.
“Adyn was really the only friend I had for the longest time,” DeLorenzo said. “He's one of the best people to come into my life.”
For several years, DeLorenzo and Adyn fought the disease together.
Out of one of life’s greatest hardships, a great friendship had formed.
“Adyn, I would say, is the little brother I never knew I needed. He meant a lot to me,” DeLorenzo said. “Having to hear the news that we had lost him -- probably the worst news of my life."
“It's always in the back of your mind that it could happen, but you never -- you just have so much hope,” Adyn’s mom, Erica, told NBC2.
After fighting for five years, the constant treatment was too much. Adyn died in 2022 before his 10th birthday.
“Never thought we were going to lose him,” Erica recalled through tears. “We just couldn't imagine.”
After Adyn died, his father, James, mother, Erica and sister, Abby, moved to Wisconsin for a fresh start.
What didn’t change is their friendship with DeLorenzo and his family, who have remained close even after Adyn’s death.
This past week, they were reunited in person. DeLorenzo asked if Adyn’s family would make the trip back so they could all honor him in a special way.
Saturday, at the Lee Health Foundation's annual Clips for Cancer fundraising event, Abby got to shave DeLorenzo's head, who then returned the favor for James.
The money raised at the event goes to support kids fighting cancer, like Adyn did for so long.
“He would eat it up,” DeLorenzo said when asked what Adyn would think of the event.
“I think a piece of Adyn lives on in Jordan,” Erica said. “It's so hard to put into words.”
DeLorenzo, who’s been cancer-free for years now, has come to discover that, sometimes, in the very worst that life can bring, you find the very best of friends.
“I know forever is a long time, but I don't care. I'll remember him forever,” DeLorenzo said.
If you’d like to help support kids fighting cancer in our community, click here to donate to the Lee Health Foundation.